In the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance,
chess was a part of noble culture; it was used to teach war strategy and was dubbed the "King's Game".
Gentlemen are "to be meanly seene in the play at Chestes," says the overview at the beginning of Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier (1528, English 1561 by Sir Thomas Hoby),
but chess should not be a gentleman's main passion. Castiglione explains it further:

"And what say you to the game at chestes?
It is truely an honest kynde of enterteynmente and wittie, quoth Syr Friderick.

But me think it hath a fault, whiche is,
that a man may be to couning at it, (One may be too cunning = skilled at it)
for who ever will be excellent in the playe of chestes,
I beleave he must beestowe much tyme about it,
and applie it with so much study,
that a man may assoone learne some noble scyence,
or compase any other matter of importaunce,
and yet in the ende in beestowing all that laboure,
he knoweth no more but a game.

Therfore in this I beleave there happeneth a very rare thing, namely,
that the meane is more commendable, then the excellency."

I took this from the Wikipedia, entry Chess.  Bold font and parenthesis are mine.

Wikipedia is very useful, isn't it?

Yes, indeed, it is.